A RADICAL DEPUTY'S DISCLOSURES TO HIS MISTRESS
I
'VE mentioned this oil business to you before, haven't I ? "
" You mean about the refiners ? "
" Yes, the people who call themselves refiners. Those fellows are robbing the revenue of some dozens of millions of francs a year. I haven't specialised in questions of this kind, and I don't want to look like having a finger in every pie. I've tried to hand on the case to some of my colleagues. They've all dodged it."
"Why?"
" Because these oil-dealers exercise an influence which I've suspected, but which I've never come up against so far. Once the question is raised in the Chamber, they may not be strong enough to control the voting, or, what comes to the same thing, to prevent the Minister from committing himself to taking action. But nobody wants to raise the question."
" Have they all been bribed ? "
" Who ? My colleagues ? No - or, rather, of some of them it's very difficult to say, and one may suppose that they have. But the rest, most of them - no. They simply don't want to expose themselves personally to the hostility of such a powerful corporation. It has so many ways of injuring us. My colleagues all say to themselves: < Why should it be I?'"
" Ways of injuring you ? What, for example ? n